SAE, Alcohol, and Irresponsibility

The incident at Sigma Alpha Epsilon, where alcohol was served to
visiting students during an event at the end of Campus Preview Weekend, was
a severe violation of MIT's policies and Massachusetts law. Moreover, the
Institute's attempts to hide the event from scrutiny are highly
inappropriate and have further undermined MIT's credibility.

The fraternity violated the trust of parents and the Institute by
serving alcohol to a visiting student. An event like this, where students
are encouraged to break the law before even enrolling, makes the Institute
look extremely irresponsible. The visiting high school students and their
parents trust MIT to look after the visitors while they are here. This
event made a mockery of that trust. The punishments meted out to SAE are
reasonable and more severe sanctions would not be inappropriate.

MIT's behavior following the incident has been equally reprehensible.
The trial conducted by the Interfraternity Council Judicial Committee
occurred in near-secrecy. In most Judcomm cases, all the fraternities,
sororities, and independent living groups are appraised of the situation,
but this time they were not. Although the trial was conducted in accordance
with the IFC constitution, neither the Institute nor the IFC should be
hiding incidents like this from the community.

In an additional effort to hide the incident from public view, MIT also
failed to inform several bodies that clearly should be appraised of the
situation. MIT provided no information to SAE's national organization about
the incident or punishment. The Institute also failed to inform the Boston
Licensing Board. After the death of Scott S. Krueger '01, MIT pledged to
improve communication with the board. Their failure to communicate in this
case suggests these pledges were not made in good faith.

The Institute's haphazard handling of the incident also demonstrates how
poorly the new alcohol policies actually function. After months of work,
the administration produced what they touted as a comprehensive and uniform
alcohol punishment policy. However, all these efforts proved a failure when
faced with a serious incident to be addressed, as evidenced by the
secretive and muddled handling of SAE's infraction.

SAE's actions in serving alcohol to visiting high school students were
totally unacceptable. However, MIT's secretive and disorganized response
was just as inappropriate. If MIT is to regain the trust of the community,
it must do better.